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SALT II and the strategic balance*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Colin S. Gray
Colin S. Gray
Affiliation:
Assistant Director, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London
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Extract

Because arms control negotiations and agreements may serve many ends, not all of which will be fully supportive one of another, the assessment of their value and implications must be inconclusive. For so long as a broad commitment to detente policies remains the general line of foreign policy, then for so long is a SALT II treaty close to inevitable. In terms of the identifiable political, strategic and economic benefits of the SALT exercise thus far – six years on – it is debatable whether or not SALT has any justification beyond the fact of its existence. Even unproductive institutions can be costly to dismantle. Before exploring the possible strengths and weaknesses of a putative SALT II regime, it is worth recalling the ends that SALT,could serve.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , October 1975 , pp. 183 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1975

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References

page 183 note 1. Stability allows of many meanings, but technical strategic stability is generally understood to refer to a context wherein ‘the first strike bonus’ is close to zero. In other words, neither side should expect to improve its war-fighting performance by striking first as opposed to second.

page 184 note 1. For elaboration see Gray, Colin S., ‘Detente, Arms Control, and Strategy: Perspectives on SALT’, The American Political Science Revieip, Sept. 1976CrossRefGoogle Scholar, forthcoming.

page 184 note 2. See Garthoff, Raymond L., ‘SALT and the Soviet Military’, Problems of Communism, xxiv (Jan.-Feb. 1975), pp. 33–34Google Scholar.

page 184 note 3. By 1969-70 the Soviet Union seemed to lose enthusiasm for the deployment of her Galosh ABM system, while it is far from certain that there would be any Safeguard ABM deployment had the SALT negotiations not catalysed the ‘bargaining chip’ rationale. Ibid. pp. 29-31.

page 185 note 1. Henry Kissinger, Press Conference in Vladivostok, 24 Nov. 1974 (mimeo).

page 185 note 2. The text of the accords may be located in Survival, xvii (Jan./Feb. 1975), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

page 186 note 1. Complete documentation of the SALT I agreements is in Survival, xiv (July/Aug. 1972), pp. 192–9Google Scholar.

page 186 note 2. Here defined, with respect to a single missile, as the total weight of the re-entry vehicle(s) plus guidance unit which can be delivered over a stated range and in a stated trajectory.

page 186 note 3. The effectiveness of an ICBM force against a hardened target system (i.e. silo-housed lCBM's) is a compound of many variables. While throwweight is important, since it determines how many re-entry vehicles and what yields a missile force can deliver (and how much guidance technology may be carried), it is true that accuracy is more important than yield roughly in the ratio of 4:1. A halving of the expected median miss distance of a missile is the equivalent of an eight-fold increase in the yield of the warhead. A useful semi-technical exposition of the problems attendant upon calculating counterforce effectiveness is Nacht, Michael L., ‘The Vladivostok Accord and American Technological Options’, Survival, xvii (May/June 1975), pp. 106–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 186 note 4. When cold launched, an ICBM is ejected from its silo by means of low-pressure gas, following which the first stage rocket motor is ignited. Cold launching does not damage a silo, hence - in principle - the same silo can be used to launch many ICBM's.

page 186 note 5. New strategic technologies that bear upon most of the items listed (i)-(vi) are explained in Strategic Survey, 1974 (London, 1975), pp. 46–50Google Scholar.

page 187 note 1. A cruise missile essentially is a pilotless aircraft. The cruise missile programme of the United States, which is at present the subject of contention in SALT, is expected to result in a missile powered by a turbofan jet engine capable of transonic speed.

page 187 note 2. See Strategic Survey, 1974, op. cit. pp. 60-65. Until the late Autumn of 1974, the United States was seeking a SALT II agreement that would allow her a very considerable measure of numerical compensation in MIRV launchers so as to offset the 4:1 Soviet advantage in ICBM throwweight. The Soviet Union was no more interested in this proposal than she was in the alternative notion that a common ceiling for missile throwweight be imposed.

page 187 note 3. Any missile so tested will be viewed as MIRVed, in American eyes. Dr Kissinger has claimed that this principle ‘is non-negotiable’. Background briefing on SALT, 25 Nov. 1974 (mimeo), p. 5.

page 188 note 1. Background briefing on SALT, 3 Dec. 1974 (mineo), p. c-12.

page 189 note 1. See Gray, Colin S., The Soviet-American Arms Race (London: Saxon House, D. C. Heath, 1976Google Scholar, forthcoming).

page 190 note 1. Schlesinger, James R., Annual Defense Department Report, FY1976 and 197T (Washington, D.C, 1975), pp. 11–13Google Scholar.

page 191 note 1. A useful exploration of the strategic and political issues raised by the new cruise missile technology and the advanced navigational aids that promise to bring the circular error probability (CEP - an estimate of the radius of a circle within which 50 per cent of the weapons are expected to impact) of these missiles down very close to zero is Tsipis, Kosta‘The Long-Range Cruise Missile’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, xxxl (Apr. 1975), pp. 15–26Google Scholar.

page 191 note 2. The same thought is worrying the United States Air Force. Should an administration become enamoured of the cost effectiveness of large scale cruise missile deployment, the case for the very expensive penetrating B-i could be seen to erode very seriously. Approximately 100 ALCM's could be carried by and launched from a single converted Boeing 747. Such a lucrative target would not, of course, be provided - but the threat to the B-i concept is quite obvious.

page 192 note 1. There appears to have been a shift in the United States’ position on Backfire. In the immediate wake of the Vladivostok summit, Henry Kissinger seemed to believe that Backfire was excluded. This aircraft is something of a hybrid: it is too large and sophisticated to be obviously classifiable as a theatre strike aircraft; while it falls short of being a true intercontinental system. But, to employ Western analogies, Backfire B is far closer to the B-x than it is to the F-i 11A. See Schlesinger, Annual Defense Department Report, FY 1976 and op. cit. pp. II-15-16.

page 192 note 2. See the following articles by Clarence Robinson, A. Jr, ‘Soviet Treaty Violations Detected’, Aviation Week and Space Technology (AWST), 101 (21 Oct. 1974), pp. 14–15Google Scholar; ‘Soviets Hiding Submarine Work’, AWST, 101 (11 Nov. 1974), pp. 14–16Google Scholar; ‘U.S. Seeks Meeting on SALT Violations’, AWST, 101 (25 Nov. 1974), pp. 18–19Google Scholar; ‘Further Violations of SALT Seen’, AWST, 102 (3 Feb. 1975), pp. 12–13Google Scholar. Also important is Szulc, Tad, ‘Soviet Violations of the SALT Deal: Have we been had?’, The New Republic, 7 June 1975, pp. 11–15Google Scholar.

page 194 note 1. The issue of how to ‘write into’ SALT II a commitment to negotiate substantial reductions in SALT III was discussed very briefly at the beginning of this section. Brief analysis of the prospects for actually negotiating strategic force reductions is offered at the end of the article.

page 195 note 1. The various currents of opinion in the contemporary strategic debate, and their respective strengths, may be sampled economically in the cluster of articles in Orbis) xviii (Fall 1974), PP- 655-79°-2. As of mid-1975, United States strategic ‘force loading’ (that is, the number of separate weapons theoretically deliverable by the strategic forces) stands at close to 8,500 (to a Soviet total of 2,800). In the event of a Soviet first strike, and allowing for the delivery vehicles that would not complete their missions, nothing like 8,500 could be presumed to be deliverable.

page 195 note 1. Recently re-named the Centurion in order to end tKe confusion that has resulted from the SLBM and the SSBN having the same name.

page 196 note 2. Terminal guidance is required for strategic operations only if a non-nuclear capability against hardened targets is desired. Employing nuclear warheads, a terminally-guided re-entry vehicle would be as unnecessary as it would encounter new difficulties (over re-entry vehicles that were inertially guided). Specifically, counter-measures may be devised to confound terminal guidance technologies.

page 196 note 1. ‘A nuclear explosion produces electrical and magnetic fields which, if they penetrate an unshielded missile silo, destroy electronic equipment and wipe clean computer memories.’ Strategic Survey, 1974, op. cit. p. 49Google Scholar. See Gaul, Edwin J., ‘Electro-magnetic Pulse’, Military Review, LIV (Mar. 1975), pp . 12–18Google Scholar; and Tsipis, Kosta, Offensive Missiles, Stockholm Paper 5 (Stockholm, 1974), p. 13Google Scholar.

page 197 note 1. Background briefing on SALT, 3 Dec. 1974, pp. A-11-13.

page 198 note 1. See GarthofF, op. clt. pp. 30-31.

page 199 note 2. The members of a maritime alliance such as NATO have some difficulty in empathizing with the continued official Soviet reserve concerning its sea-based deterrent. Not merely is Soviet strategic thought dominated by a land-power orientation, but Soviet officials feel some anxiety over the lack of direct political control that can be exercised over the crews of SSBN's on patrol. This is a quite distinct point from the sensible anxiety that should attend any contemplation of the problems involved in exercising real-time command and control over SSBN's.

page 199 note 3. By way of illustration, the simplified theoretical kill probability (PK) of a single Mk 12A re-entry vehicle against a Soviet silo hardened to resist 1,000 psi. is 0*34 (assuming a nominal CEP of 0-2 nautical miles (N.M)): against a silo hardened to resist only 300 psi. the PK is 0-64. These PK's are read off the Vulnerability Assessment Calculator of the Boeing Aerospace Company. In fact, as Michael Nacht {op. cit. pp. 109-10) reminds us, single vulnerability values cannot be attributed to a particular silo configuration.

page 200 note 1. High speed re-entry vehicles, because of their shape (finely tapered) pose severe problems for nuclear warhead design (nucleonics - in this context).

page 200 note 2. I have been challenged on this, but I remain unconvinced.

page 201 note 1. James Schiesinger announced in a news conference on 20 June 1975 that deployment of this system had begun (probably early in 1975).

page 201 note 2. American scientists learnt of EMP effects ‘by accident’ from their British colleagues.

page 202 note 1. ‘Fratricide’ is the killing by one or several warheads of other ‘friendly’ incoming re-entry vehicles. The radiation, shock-wave, wind and debris scattering {inter alia) effects of nuclear explosions could easily have a fatal effect upon re-entry vehicles whose aim points were within any of the lethal radii of the various effects of the first explosion. An exaggerated but useful statement of potentially fratricidal phenomena is McGlinchey, Joseph J. and Seelig, Jakob W., ‘Why ICBMs Can Survive a Nuclear Attack’ Air Force Magazine, Ivii (Sept. 1974), pp. 82–85Google Scholar.

page 202 note 2. ‘Salvage fusing’ is a technique whereby a weapon is designed to explode if certain (undesirable but anticipated) events occur. For example, if an ABM interceptor approached too close, or if a nuclear weapon actually exploded dangerously close.

page 202 note 3. The United States began deploying MIRV launchers in 1970, the Soviet Union in 1975.

page 203 note 1. Given the fact that the United States offers no more than (a generously estimated) 1,500 hardened aim points, the question of whether the Soviet Union deploys 800 or 1,320 MIRV launchers is solely of political and academic interest. In the jargon of strategic analysis, the United States could well benefit (in theoretical strategic analytical terms) from an extensive ‘fractionation’ of Soviet missile payload. A large number of low yield warheads could (depending on ‘how large is large’) well offer a less effective hard target counterforce capability than would a much smaller number of high (multi-megaton) yield warheads.

page 204 note 1. This thesis is developed at length in Gray, Colin S., ‘SALT and the American Mood’, Strategic Review, iii (Summer 1975), pp. 41–51Google Scholar.

page 205 note 1. The United States’ Department of Defense is, at present, convinced that (a) third parties appraise the relative strategic strength of the Super Powers with some considerable measure of attention, and that (b) these perceptions of relative advantage are translated into public policy. A major research effort is now in progress to determine whether or not these official American convictions have any substantial basis in fact I

page 206 note 1. Mobile ICBM's ‘would have substantial CEP degradation problems, which could be corrected by navigational aids providing mid-course and terminal guidance. Also, the ‘garage mobile’ concept for ICBM basing - constituting a shell game wherein an ICBM was moved at random (and preferably under cover all the way) among a well-dispersed set of hardened shelters - could provide a means of avoiding the problems of CEP degradation. This concept avoids the command and control difficulties associated with more free range land-mobile basing alternatives.

page 207 note 1. The GPS will consist of twenty-four satellites able to inform a computer on board an ICBM of its location to within twenty feet in terms of longtitude, latitude and altitude. See Tsipis, ‘The Long-Range Cruise Missile’, op. cit. pp. 22-23.

page 207 note 2. Background briefing on SALT, 3 Dec. 1974, p. A-2.